New Archbishop of Milan Will be General Vicar Mario Delphini

Cardinal Angelo Scola should be retired tomorrow due to age.
His successor in all likelihood is to be Vicar General Mario Delphini 

(Rome) Monsignor Mario Delpini, the previous Vicar General of the Archdiocese, is to become the new Archbishop of Milan. The northern Italian Archdiocese, which is not the Roman Rite, but the Ambrosian Rite, is one of the most important dioceses in the world. The Archbishop is still Angelo Cardinal Scola, the opponent of Pope Francis in the conclave of 2013, who is in good health but has also completed his 75th year of life in November 2016, and therefore presented the canonical request for resignation to the Pope.

Monsignor Mario Delpini

The appointment of Monsignor Delpini will be announced by the Vatican, "subject to a change in the last hour", on Friday. This is reported by the papal House Vaticanist Andrea Tornielli on Vatican Insider.

Thus Pope Francis chose the candidate who had been the favorite among the consulters in the diocese. According to Tornielli, it was Cardinal Scola who had asked the Pope to make the appointment before the summer so that after the summer the "pastoral year could begin with the new Archbishop."

Mgr. Delpini entered the Archdiocesan Seminary in 1967 and was ordained priest in 1975 by the then Archbishop Giovanni Cardinal Colombo. He studied Patristics at the Augustinianum in Rome and taught Greek and Patristics at the Milan seminaries.

Cardinal Martini made him the rector of the Seminary. Under Cardinal Tettamanzi, he became auxiliary bishop in 2007. Cardinal Scola, who was Patriarch of Venice until Pope Benedict XVI. in 2011 called him to the bishop's chair of St. Ambrose, made the auxiliary bishop his Vicar General. In 2014, he also entrusted him with the training of the clergy.

Tornielli emphasizes that Delpini is a "choice of continuity." He had served the "last three archbishops," Martini, Tettamanzi, and Scola, "spiritual, humble but not submissive, a great worker, but far from the type of manager bishop, and he attaches great importance to personal relationships with priests," says Tornielli. He was on the road in the city.

"Group elevation" to make adolescents "actors"

The Auxiliary Bishop Delpini engaged in liturgical relativism for World Youth Day 2013 through liturgical relativism. Delpini celebrated a Holy Mass with the young people of the Archdiocese before their departure for Rio de Janeiro.

Katholisches.info reported at the time:

"At the end of the high feast, the episcopal 'superintendant' of the celebration celebrated not only with his priestly concelebrants, but youths, specially called to the altar, to elevate the chalices with the Precious Blood of Christ and the Hosts with the Body of Christ. Apart from the fact that normally only one chalice and a ciborium with the consecrated hosts are raised, even if several are used: the group elevation was not carried out by priests or deacons, who stood idly in the background, but by young laymen, girls and fellows who had previously been fished out of the church nave by the coordinating priest.

The embarrassed facial expressions of the young people in the pictures are quite telling. You clearly are in the wrong place. There is no cross on the altar. It was forgotten in the zeal of a conspicuous priesthood of all believers. The Lord is hanging on the side wall in the background. The photo was even published on the website of the church newspaper IncrociNews of the Archdiocese of Milan, among the official reports on World Youth Day 2013 .  

The example shows that they are priests who behave like elephants in the liturgical china shop. 

The Archbishop's Liturgy Commissioner tried to defend the Auxiliary Bishop and Vicar General against the criticism, which did not exactly improve the situation. Msgr Pierantonio Tremolada wrote:

"I am absolutely convinced that the gesture was intended to give the young people the feeling of being actors during the week of World Youth Day" (as the Pope said yesterday). Moreover, we are not sure that it was decided by S. Ex. Mons. Delpini. The leaders of the celebration do not always decide the liturgical gestures, sometimes at the last moment they execute them at the instruction of others."

The liturgy commissioner did not go into the gesture. On the contrary, the reference to the pope made it clear that he did not bother.

By tomorrow's appointment, Pope Francis will have appointed the metropolitans of the three largest, most prestigious and wealthy archbishoprics in the world within three years with Cologne, Chicago and Milan.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Photo: Vatican.va/MiL/IncrociNews (Screenshot)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
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